


with winged days

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Feelings, Introspection, Longing, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Sibling Incest, la la la, pretending like loki never stole the tesseract and infinity war isn't happening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 01:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13823988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: the asgardians come to earth, the seasons pass, and loki tries to adjust





	with winged days

**Author's Note:**

> “While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.”
> 
> ― Seneca

It’s summer where the last remnants of the once-mighty Asgardian empire make Earthfall. They stream out into the grassy field, relieved beyond words to finally exchange hard metal angles and claustrophobic ceilings for the uneven ground and the open sky. There is much work to be done, for this place is nothing near a home yet, but for now it is enough to feel the earth breathing beneath their feet, to fill their ears with the buzz of insects and the call of birds and the far-off crashing of waves. Even simply the blueness of the sky is a gift after so many endless months of star-studded blackness.

Thor and Loki exit last. They step onto the gangplank side by side. Now-king and was-king, first and second in command, brother and brother.

Thor looks to his people and Loki looks to Thor.

Loki is still not sure where he stands with his brother. They have been through so much and talked so little. They are here now together but Loki cannot silence the niggling voice in the back of his head that tells him that it can’t last. He knows that it is in his own nature to forever be unsatisfied, to chafe and to push, and Thor has finally shown that he is capable of being pushed away.

Loki keeps thinking it would be better to run, first.

The air is hot and humid in their lungs, the sunlight as heavy as a woolen blanket. Nobody wishes to sleep in the ship this night, and the adults start setting up shelter while the children splash and shriek in a stream they found cutting through the field.

There is drinking and celebration long into the night, but when Loki looks for Thor he cannot find him. He makes his way through the ramshackle tent city and finds his brother nowhere. He searches the ship and turns up similarly empty-handed.

Stopping for a moment to think, and then to orient himself, Loki sets off away from the fires and the sounds of laughter and out into the darkness.

The moon is full and Loki makes out the log first, and then the form of his brother kneeling in the grass staring at the ground.

“Have you tried to pick it up?” Loki asks softly, coming to stand behind him.

Thor shakes his head mutely. A small pile of metal rubble is gleaming in the moonlight exactly where it had fallen after crumbling in Hela’s hand.

“Can I sit with you?” Loki asks. He hates this new cautiousness in him. Hates that his fear of being abandoned again has made him so soft.

Thor gestures to the spot next to him and Loki settles there with his arms around his knees, their shoulders touching, and tries not to think of running.

*

Autumn comes quickly. The diplomatic fallout from their sudden arrival has been intense and the brothers are forever traveling from one meeting to another, hammering out agreements with Earth’s leading powers, trying to carve out a place for their people.

They’re in New York when Loki finally has a moment to rest. The trees have all flamed into transient glory and the air smells like fallen leaves and incipient snow. Days are shorter now and the shadows of the buildings are long and Loki wonders if there will ever be a place for him here. They have not welcomed him kindly in New York.

He and Thor are sharing a penthouse suite simply because there was only the one in the best hotel the city had to offer, and Loki refused to be relegated to a lesser room. It is nearing midnight, and Loki is standing at the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows staring out past his own reflection to the glittering city spread out below him. It had almost been destroyed by his hand. Should have been.

Thor’s reflection joins his and then a warm arm drapes itself over Loki’s shoulders.

“You shouldn’t think so loudly,” Thor says. “Other people might hear you.”

Loki evades with sarcasm, as he usually does. “Stark’s tower is quite hideous, is it not? And so large. One might think he was trying to compensate for something--”

“Hmm, maybe like a certain someone who gets stabby when his emotions run high?”

Loki’s cheeks color and he shoves Thor away from him. “Don’t joke about that right now,” he says sharply, turning away.

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, and he sounds like he means it. “I was only recalling how you pricked me with that tiny little sewing needle of yours the last time we were there.”

Loki scowls and goes to the bathroom to wash his face.

Thor follows him and leans on the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“No need to sleep in the bathtub,” Thor says amiably. “The bed is more than big enough for both of us.”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Your wit is so sparkling tonight I have no idea how I’ll keep up.”

But Thor simply goes and turns down the covers on both sides of the bed, and Loki joins him without a word. He listens to Thor’s breathing in the dark and it’s comforting, a sound he’s fallen asleep to more times than he can count, and he feels a tiny thread of something loosen in his chest.

He should probably have refused sharing Thor’s bed, but lately when Thor offers something, Loki has been taking it with both hands, lest the offers stop coming.

And this was an offer he didn’t particularly want to refuse, anyway.

*

Winter brings bitter winds and drifting snows. The Asgardians have built slightly more permanent shelters for themselves in the field where they first touched down, but negotiations are underway with Stark and the nation of Wakanda to build them a floating city-state using repulsor technology and vibranium. It’s not complete though, and so the refugees huddle together for warmth and comfort through the worst that Norway’s winter has to offer.

The ship would be a better shelter, but nobody wants to step foot in it anymore. For most of the population, the days they spent there were the worst of their lives, and too many ghosts echo in its corridors.

Thor is made of sterner stuff than most, though, and sometimes Loki finds him in his old room.

“Why do you keep coming back here?” Loki asks. A fine layer of dust has settled over almost everything, and he draws his fingertip through it and looks at it distastefully.

“To remind myself of where we came from. To remember.”

Thor is standing at the sideboard by the mirror just like the first time Loki had seen him in these rooms.

“Catch,” Thor says. Loki has half an instant to put up his hand before that same bottle stopper is colliding with his palm and Thor is giving him that same dopey grin.

“Do we have to hug now?” Loki says, halfway smiling in spite of himself.

“Yes, it’s part of the script,” Thor grins, then he’s lifting Loki in a bear hug so tight that Loki squeaks. By the time Thor sets him down Loki is pink cheeked and smiling too, but Thor’s face has gone serious.

“This place makes me sadder than any other,” Thor says. “But it makes me happier than any other too. Because this is where you came back.”

“Stop,” Loki says, but another thread loosens inside him.

“I thought you might not--” Thor is saying at the same moment that Loki is saying “Of course I did, of course I did--” and they both look a little glassy eyed and Thor takes Loki’s cheeks in his hands and presses a long kiss to his forehead and Loki sighs.

*

It’s spring when the first miniature prototype for Asgardia is complete. It rises from the ground like the first flowers pushing through the snow, and the Asgardians’ hearts rise with it. The snow begins to melt and the stream begins to crack, and its banks rise as the water rushes down to tumble over the edge of the cliff to the sea below.

Thor has somehow after months of convincing gotten Loki and Jane (and Heimdall) to work together on building something approximating a Bifrost. With Loki’s expertise at finding hidden ways, Jane’s work with Einstein-Rosen bridges, and Heimdall’s millennia of experience operating one, they have a decent shot at it.

Loki still aches when he looks at Jane, though. He cannot fathom what made his brother think so highly of her, cannot completely quell his resentment and what he finally realizes is his jealousy.

Whatever Thor and Jane had had between them is over, but that it ever existed at all is a wound half-healed at best, one that Jane’s presence rips open a tiny bit each time Loki sees her.

He is always in a terrible mood after they work together.

As they grow closer to a Bifrost solution, and the Asgardia prototype continues to be successful, Loki can start to see the end of his time on Earth. It was mostly nice while it lasted, but there is no way he can stay. Surely Thor will see that. Whatever this new balance is that has grown between them will tip over, and Loki does not want to be the one who falls on his arse when it happens.

He begins to make preparations to leave.

Thor senses the change in him.

“Itchy feet?” Thor asks him one night when Loki is particularly agitated after spending an afternoon arguing with Jane.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Loki snaps.

Thor gives him a look. “You don’t have to leave, you know.”

“Well I can’t bloody well _stay_.”

“Why not?”

Loki stops pacing to look at Thor helplessly.

“What possible reason could I have to do that?” Loki asks.

Thor steps closer and Loki’s pulse speeds up. The look on Thor’s face is not one he’s seen before. Huge warm hands are gripping his shoulders, and, wide-eyed, Loki tilts his face up, and Thor leans in and kisses him. Gently, thoroughly, and in no way at all brotherly.

By the time they break apart all the constellations have realigned and Loki’s heart is fluttering somewhere in his throat.

“Promise me you’ll come back,” Thor murmurs. He puts his hand on the back of Loki’s neck, his thumb stroking behind Loki’s ear, and touches their foreheads together. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

“Do what?” Loki breathes.

“Rule. Everything else. Exist. Be.”

Loki shudders. The knot in his chest finally falls apart.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> visit me at raven-brings-light.tumblr.com


End file.
